Eson is out / Plant cancelled / Landewyck is inI read the January 2022 progress report filed by Poda. on February 4, 2022. It is the most current up to date information.
It appears that I am correct in my analysis. The 500,000 initial delivery order made in October 2021 through Eson was made to one customer, and this was probably Landewyck.
Landewyck must have approached Poda about doing a direct deal and removing the middle man Eson. I believe that Landewyck must have introduced Christophe Tepr to Poda. They wanted one of their own on the Poda team before finalizing a deal. Tepr used to work for BAT which owns 25% of Landewyck.
The new offer was that Poda would use the manufacturing and distribution facilities of Landewyck instead of going through Eson, through China plant and, to Landewyck. The covid19 virus has made relations with China very difficult with exporting goods as they could lock down a city at any time. Landewyck wanted control over the operations before pushing the product out. They do not want to risk their name.
Hence the business relationship with Eson has ended and, so has the need for a China plant.
Poda gets to keep its $ 14.5 million in the bank, which covers it for 2 years of operations, no more dilution, until maybe 2024 or 2025.
Landewyck has built a new manufacturing plant to the tune of $ 116 million and, can manfucture hundreds of millions of poda pods per month. Plant is operational in January 2022.
Poda will earn a greater profit as it will have minimal expenses and risk, plus there is no issue with manufacturing and distribution.
Ryan kept saying that this was his worry about being able to meet the supply and, Ryan also said that he could flood the market with pods as the demand was there. He knew this for sure, cause Landewyck was the buyer with this demand..
It is a good move to cut off Eson and the cost of the plant. Landewyck is 100 times more bigger than Eson and, more established with 175 years in business + is 25% owner by a Tobacco giant BAT that competes head on with Philipp Morris.
https://webfiles.thecse.com/2022-01_PODA_Monthly_Progress_Report_v1_FINAL.pdf?wcF1JormE2ex4XxsqIl7lgiqvvTJjX2k
My personal opinion